Other Christian Traditions vs Catholic Church

“I appeal to you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no dissensions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.”

1 Corinthians 1:10

The Watchtower section of this site asks whether Jehovah’s Witnesses are the restoration of apostolic Christianity. This section asks a different question, of people much closer to home: where other Christians and the Catholic Church divide, who has the better of the argument? The parties here are not a sect and a Church but communions that confess the same creed and share the same baptism, and the disagreements are centuries old rather than a century and a half.

The pages written so far take up the Protestant objections, which are the ones most often pressed on an American Catholic and the ones this author met first. The section is not named for them, because “Protestant” is not one position — Lutherans, the Reformed and modern evangelicals differ among themselves as sharply as any of them differs with Rome — and because it leaves out the Eastern Orthodox altogether. The East rejects purgatory as the Latin Church defines it, and rejects papal jurisdiction outright, while standing with Rome on the Eucharist, the saints and the Blessed Virgin. That is a third position rather than a variant of the second, and it is owed a treatment of its own rather than a footnote in someone else’s.

This section overlaps the Watchtower one, and the overlap is the interesting part. Several of these pages began there, because Jehovah’s Witnesses deny purgatory, the intercession of the saints and the honors paid to Mary just as firmly as any Reformer does. On those questions the Witnesses and the Protestants stand together against Rome — though they arrive by very different routes, and would be dismayed to find themselves in company.

The Eucharist is the case where the two came far enough apart to need separate pages. Literal Body and Blood? takes the Protestant dispute — transubstantiation, and whether a Mass offered daily can be the sacrifice offered once for all. The Watchtower’s quite different objection, with its annual observance and its restriction of the bread and wine to a small anointed class, is answered in the other section at Memorial or Eucharist?

Where they diverge is at least as instructive. On the Trinity and the deity of Christ, historic Protestantism holds what the Catholic Church holds and the Watchtower rejects both. On justification, the Witnesses reject sola fide as firmly as Trent did, and for reasons a Catholic would only partly recognize. So a reader who has followed the Watchtower pages will find some arguments here already familiar and others turned on their head.

Four of these pages have no Watchtower content at all. Sola scriptura, sola fide, apostolic succession and the Eucharistic presence are argued against Protestant positions, and their left panels are headed Protestant View accordingly. The first three are the foundation of the rest: settle whether Scripture alone is the rule of faith, what grace actually does to a man, and whether the apostles left anyone behind with authority to decide such questions, and most of what follows is decided with them.

The tone here should be different from the Watchtower section, and it is meant to be. The disagreement between Catholics and Protestants is a disagreement between Christians who confess the same creed, share the same baptism, and read the same Gospels — which is why the epigraph above is Paul pleading for unity rather than warning against error. Nothing on these pages supposes that Protestants are not Christians, and the 1999 accord on justification is treated at length rather than ignored.

Let’s take the formal principles first, then the doctrines that follow from them, and ask: Is Scripture alone the rule of faith — and if so, where does Scripture say so, and who decided which books it contains? And are the disputed Catholic doctrines late additions, or developments of what the Church believed from the first?

I invite your engagement with me on these questions. You may leave comments below, but please be sure to read our policy on commenting before doing so.

About This Section

The pages here answer the objections other Christians press against the Catholic Church. Those written so far are Protestant ones, and almost every disagreement among them descends from one of two questions — worth seeing before reading any particular page. What is the rule of faith? And what does grace actually do to a person? Settle those and the rest — purgatory, the Eucharist, the saints, the Blessed Virgin — follows with a good deal less argument than the disputes usually generate.

The Two Formal Principles

Is sola scriptura true? takes the rule of faith. If Scripture alone settles doctrine, the Catholic appeal to Tradition is illegitimate before any other argument begins, and every page below is decided in advance. The reply turns on two difficulties: that the doctrine is not itself taught in Scripture, and that the canon — which books are Scripture — had to be received from somewhere else.

Is sola fide true? takes justification. Rather less divides the two sides here than the heat suggests: the Catholic Church teaches that salvation is by grace and that nothing merits it, and Trent said so in as many words. What is disputed is whether justification is a verdict declared over a man who stays as he was, or a grace that actually changes him. The 1999 Joint Declaration is treated on that page rather than avoided.

Apostolic Succession is the third, and it is really the first question in another form. If the apostles left successors, then the Church has a living voice and the rule of faith is not Scripture read privately; if they did not, every appeal to Tradition is an appeal to nobody. The page takes the succession of bishops, the Magisterium and papal authority together, because they are one claim in three parts, and it answers Honorius and the Great Western Schism rather than hurrying past them.

And beneath all three sits a question about what kind of thing the Church is at all. One Church, or many? asks whether the Church of the creed is a visible body — something with councils, judgments, and an address — or the invisible company of the elect, present across the denominations without being any of them. The confessions are quoted exactly, Westminster included, and the answer runs from “tell it to the church” to the pillar and bulwark of 1 Timothy 3:15.

What Follows From Them

Symbols, or sacraments? follows directly from the justification question. If grace comes by faith alone, directly to the soul, the signs can only picture it; if God works through matter — as He did in creation, in circumcision, and in the Incarnation itself — then “baptism… now saves you” (1 Pet. 3:21) means what it says. That page argues the principle, the baptism of infants, and confession.

Is purgatory scriptural? depends almost entirely on the second question. If righteousness is credited to a man who remains unchanged, a final purification is unnecessary and indeed insulting to the sufficiency of Christ. If grace makes him actually holy, and that work is plainly unfinished in most of us at death, then something must complete it.

Literal Body and Blood? asks what happens at the Lord’s Supper — whether the Eucharist is a symbol, a spiritual presence, or the thing the second-century writers plainly took it to be, and whether the Mass can be a sacrifice without denying that Calvary was once for all. It is the question on which Protestants divide most sharply from each other, so the page sets out Luther, Calvin and Zwingli separately rather than answering a composite nobody holds.

The Communion of Saints and The Blessed Virgin turn on whether the dead in Christ are alive and can be asked to pray. Much of the objection dissolves once the distinction between honoring and worshipping is stated precisely, and much of it does not — the Marian dogmas in particular need defending on their own ground, and that page tries to do so rather than deflect.

Where This Section Overlaps the Watchtower One

Three of these pages were written first as answers to Jehovah’s Witnesses, and their left panels still quote Watchtower publications, because that is where the objection was being pressed hardest. Nothing in them is thereby wasted on a Protestant reader: on purgatory, the saints and the Blessed Virgin, the Witness objection and the Reformed objection are often the same objection, and the answer to one is the answer to the other.

But the two are not identical, and the differences matter. A Protestant denies purgatory because he holds justification to be complete at once; a Witness denies it because he holds the dead to be unconscious. The conclusions coincide and the reasoning does not, and an argument aimed at one will sometimes miss the other entirely.

The Eucharist is the case where the two came apart far enough to need separate pages. A Protestant denies transubstantiation while usually affirming that Christ is present in some real manner; a Witness holds the Memorial to be a bare commemoration, kept once a year, which the great majority of those attending may not receive at all. So that dispute is treated here, and the Watchtower’s version at Memorial or Eucharist?

How These Pages Argue

The other side is not treated as a sect. The Reformers were serious men with serious reasons, several of the abuses they protested were real abuses, and the Church has since said so. Anyone who cannot state the Protestant case in a form a Protestant would recognize has no business answering it.

Agreement is reported as fully as disagreement. Where the two communions have found common ground — most notably on justification in 1999 — these pages say so and say how far it goes, including where it stops.

And the argument is among Christians. The Catholic Church regards baptized Protestants as truly Christian and truly her brethren, however real the separation. That is not diplomacy; it is her formal teaching, and it sets the tone these pages try to keep.

Summary

This section takes the questions that divide other Christians from the Catholic Church — a disagreement among people who confess the same creed and share the same baptism, which is why it is argued here in a different key from the Watchtower section. The pages written so far answer Protestant objections; the Eastern Orthodox, who divide from Rome on quite different ground, are owed their own and do not yet have them.

Three questions decide most of it. Is Scripture alone the rule of faith? Does grace declare a man righteous or make him so? And did the apostles leave anyone behind with authority to settle such things? Sola scriptura, sola fide, apostolic succession and the question of what the Church itself is are therefore the place to start; the doctrinal pages largely follow from how they are answered.

Then the doctrines that depend on them. The sacraments turn on whether God gives grace through signs or only alongside them. Purgatory stands or falls with whether justification actually changes a person. The Eucharist turns on whether a plain sentence in an upper room may be read as a figure of speech, and on what the second century took the rite to be. The saints and the Blessed Virgin turn on whether the dead in Christ are alive and may be asked to pray.

It overlaps the Watchtower section deliberately. Three of these pages were written first against Jehovah’s Witnesses, who reject purgatory, the saints and the Marian doctrines as firmly as any Reformer. On those points the objection is often the same objection, and the answer serves both.

But the reasoning differs, and that is worth watching. A Protestant denies purgatory because justification is complete at once; a Witness denies it because the dead are unconscious. The conclusions coincide; the arguments do not. An answer aimed at one can miss the other entirely.

In short: the parties here are not a sect and a Church but communions that confess the same creed and share the same baptism. Where they have found common ground — as on justification in 1999 — these pages say so and say how far it reaches. Where they have not, the case is put plainly and the other side is stated in terms it would recognize.